Widespread Panic Fan Dies After Strange Police Hogtie Incident

By Amanda Warren

In an incident of disturbing irony, a man has tragically died in custody after leaving a Widespread Panic concert on Saturday evening. Troy Goode was a 30-year-old chemical engineer and a father to a 15-month-old child. Let’s be clear: the actual cause of death is not officially known at this time.

Witnesses were disturbed to see that Mississippi police and paramedics hogtied an intoxicated and apparently rowdy Goode and strangely placed him face down on a stretcher. Still, neither Goode’s wife nor the witnesses expected he would be dead later that evening.

The family attorney says that Goode screamed that he couldn’t breathe. It was a few hours later that authorities called Goode’s mother to say that he was at the hospital, and another phone call later to announce his death. Not much is known about what took place in the interim and the police have not yet commented on the cause of death.

Raw Story reports:

He started acting rowdy during the ride, jumped out of the car and ran around outside a shopping center about 7:45 p.m. 

Police were called, and Goode’s wife said the officers aggressively confronted him.
A witness said Goode opened the door to a K-9 patrol car, letting the dog out. 

The officers subdued Goode, who was asthmatic, and hogtied him and placed him face-down on a stretcher, the attorney said. 

The attorney said witnesses heard Goode, the father of a 15-month-old child, screaming that he could not breathe.

His wife thought he was going to jail, but he was taken to the hospital where he was announced dead three hours later. After one hour in the hospital, authorities reported that he was in stable condition, but not for long. What happened?

Witnesses who recorded the event were disturbed to see Goode not only hogtied, but placed on a stretcher face down. An officer yelled at the person filming. From Photography Is Not a Crime (PINAC), where the video was found:

The video below shows the last moments Troy Goode is seen in public, dead or alive. The witnesses recorded this video and made commentary indicative of a less than serious moment, until seeing that the 30-year-old engineer was hogtied, which their video confirms visually.

According to PINAC, recent headlines suggesting that Goode died of LSD are coming from a biased source – maybe to deflect responsibility? We do not know, but these headlines, which seem to be pulling info from a previous concert incident, appear disrespectful considering that there is no proof of substance use this time outside of alcohol. A toxicology report isn’t expected for another two months.

The real questions should actually be a demand, regardless of the results or potential previous health conditions: if one is taken into custody and his/her life is in custodial hands, then the goal should be to protect that person’s life until the time of release or trial. 

One headline quoted a Lieutenant who said:

It’s nothing that’s illegal. It’s called restraining. We’re just basically keeping him from kicking and hurting someone.

Restraining it might be, but there is a reason it makes people cringe. And if it is in any way implicated in injury or death, than the procedure needs to be revisited with your city pronto.

One wonders what paramedics think while transporting a suspect face down on stretcher, helplessly hogtied.

Recently from Amanda Warren:

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